The old
truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached,
is the truth that I must preach to-day, or else be false to my conscience
and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring
off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox's gospel is my gospel. That
which thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again.

It is
a great thing to begin the Christian life by believing good solid doctrine.
Some people have received twenty different "gospels" in as many years;
how many more they will accept before they get to their journey's end,
it would be difficult to predict. I thank God that He early taught me the
gospel, and I have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that I do not want
to know any other. Constant change of creed is sure loss. If a tree has
to be taken up two or three times a year, you will not need to build a
very large loft in which to store the apples. When people are always shifting
their doctrinal principles, they are not likely to bring forth much fruit
to the glory of God. It is good for young believers to begin with a firm
hold upon those great fundamental doctrines which the Lord has taught in
His Word. Why, if I believed what some preach about the temporary, trumpery
salvation which only lasts for a time, I would scarcely be at all grateful
for it; but when I know that those whom God saves He saves with an everlasting
salvation, when I know that He gives to them an everlasting righteousness,
when I know that He settles them on an everlasting foundation of everlasting
love, and that He will bring them to His everlasting kingdom, oh, then
I do wonder, and I am astonished that such a blessing as this should ever
have been given to me!

I suppose
there are some persons whose minds naturally incline towards the doctrine
of free-will. I can only say that mine inclines as naturally towards the
doctrines of sovereign grace. Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters
in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude
that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought, if God
had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner
I should have been! I should have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived
into the very depths of evil, nor should I have stopped at any vice or
folly, if God had not restrained me. I feel that I should have been a very
king of sinners, if God had let me alone. I cannot understand the reason
why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot,
if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why
I should be a partaker of Divine grace. If I am not at this moment without
Christ, it is only because Christ Jesus would have His will with me, and
that will was that I should be with Him where He is, and should share His
glory. I can put the crown nowhere but upon the head of Him whose mighty
grace has saved me from going down into the pit. Looking back on my past
life, I can see that the dawning of it all was of God; of God effectively.
I took no torch with which to light the sun, but the sun enlightened me.
I did not commence my spiritual life--no, I rather kicked, and struggled
against the things of the Spirit: when He drew me, for a time I did not
run after Him: there was a natural hatred in my soul of everything holy
and good. Wooings were lost upon me--warnings were cast to the wind--thunders
were despised; and as for the whispers of His love, they were rejected
as being less than nothing and vanity. But, sure I am, I can say now, speaking
on behalf of myself, "He only is my salvation." It was He who turned my
heart, and brought me down on my knees before Him. I can in very deed,
say with Doddridge and Toplady-- "Grace taught my soul to pray, And made
my eyes o'erflow;" and coming to this moment, I can add-- "'Tis grace has
kept me to this day, And will not let me go."

Well can
I remember the manner in which I learned the doctrines of grace in a single
instant. Born, as all of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed
the old things I had heard continually from the pulpit, and did not see
the grace of God. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it
all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord
was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this.
I can recall the very day and hour when first I received those truths in
my own soul--when they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as
with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden
from a babe into a man--that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge,
through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God. One week-night,
when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the
preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How
did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come
to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment--I should
not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my
mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself,
How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How
came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so?
Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that
He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened
up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I
desire to make this my constant confession, "I ascribe my change wholly
to God."

I once
attended a service where the text happened to be, "He shall choose our
inheritance for us;" and the good man who occupied the pulpit was more
than a little of an Arminian. Therefore, when he commenced, he said, "This
passage refers entirely to our temporal inheritance, it has nothing whatever
to do with our everlasting destiny, for," said he, "we do not want Christ
to choose for us in the matter of Heaven or hell. It is so plain and easy,
that every man who has a grain of common sense will choose Heaven, and
any person would know better than to choose hell. We have no need of any
superior intelligence, or any greater Being, to choose Heaven or hell for
us. It is left to our own free-will, and we have enough wisdom given us,
sufficiently correct means to judge for ourselves," and therefore, as he
very logically inferred, there was no necessity for Jesus Christ, or anyone,
to make a choice for us. We could choose the inheritance for ourselves
without any assistance. "Ah!" I thought, "but, my good brother, it may
be very true that we could, but I think we should want something more than
common sense before we should choose aright."

First,
let me ask, must we not all of us admit an over-ruling Providence, and
the appointment of Jehovah's hand, as to the means whereby we came into
this world? Those men who think that, afterwards, we are left to our own
free-will to choose this one or the other to direct our steps, must admit
that our entrance into the world was not of our own will, but that God
had then to choose for us. What circumstances were those in our power which
led us to elect certain persons to be our parents? Had we anything to do
with it? Did not God Himself appoint our parents, native place, and friends?
Could He not have caused me to be born with the skin of the Hottentot,
brought forth by a filthy mother who would nurse me in her "kraal," and
teach me to bow down to Pagan gods, quite as easily as to have given me
a pious mother, who would each morning and night bend her knee in prayer
on my behalf? Or, might He not, if He had pleased, have given me some profligate
to have been my parent, from whose lips I might have early heard fearful,
filthy, and obscene language? Might He not have placed me where I should
have had a drunken father, who would have immured me in a very dungeon
of ignorance, and brought me up in the chains of crime? Was it not God's
Providence that I had so happy a lot, that both my parents were His children,
and endeavoured to train me up in the fear of the Lord?

John Newton
used to tell a whimsical story, and laugh at it, too, of a good woman who
said, in order to prove the doctrine of election, "Ah! sir, the Lord must
have loved me before I was born, or else He would not have seen anything
in me to love afterwards." I am sure it is true in my case; I believe the
doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen
me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I
was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must
have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason
in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am
forced to accept that great Biblical doctrine. I recollect an Arminian
brother telling me that he had read the Scriptures through a score or more
times, and could never find the doctrine of election in them. He added
that he was sure he would have done so if it had been there, for he read
the Word on his knees. I said to him, "I think you read the Bible in a
very uncomfortable posture, and if you had read it in your easy chair,
you would have been more likely to understand it. Pray, by all means, and
the more, the better, but it is a piece of superstition to think there
is anything in the posture in which a man puts himself for reading: and
as to reading through the Bible twenty times without having found anything
about the doctrine of election, the wonder is that you found anything at
all: you must have galloped through it at such a rate that you were not
likely to have any intelligible idea of the meaning of the Scriptures."

If it
would be marvelous to see one river leap up from the earth full-grown,
what would it be to gaze upon a vast spring from which all the rivers of
the earth should at once come bubbling up, a million of them born at a
birth? What a vision would it be! Who can conceive it. And yet the love
of God is that fountain, from which all the rivers of mercy, which have
ever gladdened our race--all the rivers of grace in time, and of glory
hereafter--take their rise. My soul, stand thou at that sacred fountain-head,
and adore and magnify, for ever and ever, God, even our Father, who hath
loved us! In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind
of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup; long ere the echoes awoke
the solitudes; before the mountains were brought forth; and long ere the
light flashed through the sky, God loved His chosen creatures. Before there
was any created being--when the ether was not fanned by an angel's wing,
when space itself had not an existence, when there was nothing save God
alone--even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and
profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names were
written on His heart, and then were they dear to His soul. Jesus loved
His people before the foundation of the world--even from eternity! and
when He called me by His grace, He said to me, "I have loved thee with
an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee."

Then,
in the fulness of time, He purchased me with His blood; He let His heart
run out in one deep gaping wound for me long ere I loved Him. Yea, when
He first came to me, did I not spurn Him? When He knocked at the door,
and asked for entrance, did I not drive Him away, and do despite to His
grace? Ah, I can remember that I full often did so until, at last, by the
power of His effectual grace, He said, "I must, I will come in;" and then
He turned my heart, and made me love Him. But even till now I should have
resisted Him, had it not been for His grace. Well, then since He purchased
me when I was dead in sins, does it not follow, as a consequence necessary
and logical, that He must have loved me first? Did my Saviour die for me
because I believed on Him? No; I was not then in existence; I had then
no being. Could the Saviour, therefore, have died because I had faith,
when I myself was not yet born? Could that have been possible? Could that
have been the origin of the Saviour's love towards me? Oh! no; my Saviour
died for me long before I believed. "But," says someone, "He foresaw that
you would have faith; and, therefore, He loved you." What did He foresee
about my faith? Did He foresee that I should get that faith myself, and
that I should believe on Him of myself? No; Christ could not foresee that,
because no Christian man will ever say that faith came of itself without
the gift and without the working of the Holy Spirit. I have met with a
great many believers, and talked with them about this matter; but I never
knew one who could put his hand on his heart, and say, "I believed in Jesus
without the assistance of the Holy Spirit."

I am bound
to the doctrine of the depravity of the human heart, because I find myself
depraved in heart, and have daily proofs that in my flesh there dwelleth
no good thing. If God enters into covenant with unfallen man, man is so
insignificant a creature that it must be an act of gracious condescension
on the Lord's part; but if God enters into covenant with sinful man, he
is then so offensive a creature that it must be, on God's part, an act
of pure, free, rich, sovereign grace. When the Lord entered into covenant
with me, I am sure that it was all of grace, nothing else but grace. When
I remember what a den of unclean beasts and birds my heart was, and how
strong was my unrenewed will, how obstinate and rebellious against the
sovereignty of the Divine rule, I always feel inclined to take the very
lowest room in my Father's house, and when I enter Heaven, it will be to
go among the less than the least of all saints, and with the chief of sinners.

The late
lamented Mr. Denham has put, at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable
text, "Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome of Calvinism;
it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean
by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the
Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the
essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything
contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and
I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this
fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is
the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits
of Jesus Christ--the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in
our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition
of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the
touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that
there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we
preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism;
Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach
the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works;
nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace;
nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering
love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base
it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people
which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel
which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children
of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed
in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.

"If ever
it should come to pass,That
sheep of Christ might fall away,My fickle,
feeble soul, alas!Would
fall a thousand times a day."

If one
dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones
be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel promise true, but the
Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance. I will
be an infidel at once when I can believe that a saint of God can ever fall
finally. If God hath loved me once, then He will love me for ever. God
has a master-mind; He arranged everything in His gigantic intellect long
before He did it; and once having settled it, He never alters it, "This
shall be done," saith He, and the iron hand of destiny marks it down, and
it is brought to pass. "This is My purpose," and it stands, nor can earth
or hell alter it. "This is My decree," saith He, "promulgate it, ye holy
angels; rend it down from the gate of Heaven, ye devils, if ye can; but
ye cannot alter the decree, it shall stand for ever." God altereth not
His plans; why should He? He is Almighty, and therefore can perform His
pleasure. Why should He? He is the All-wise, and therefore cannot have
planned wrongly. Why should He? He is the everlasting God, and therefore
cannot die before His plan is accomplished. Why should He change? Ye worthless
atoms of earth, ephemera of a day, ye creeping insects upon this bay-leaf
of existence, ye may change your plans, but He shall never, never change
His. Has He told me that His plan is to save me? If so, I am for ever safe.

"My name
from the palms of His handsEternity
will not erase; Impress'd onHis heart
it remains,In marks
of indelible grace."

I do not
know how some people, who believe that a Christian can fall from grace,
manage to be happy. It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able
to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe the doctrine
of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men
the most miserable, because I should lack any ground of comfort. I could
not say, whatever state of heart I came into, that I should be like a well-spring
of water, whose stream fails not; I should rather have to take the comparison
of an intermittent spring, that might stop on a sudden, or a reservoir,
which I had no reason to expect would always be full. I believe that the
happiest of Christians and the truest of Christians are those who never
dare to doubt God, but who take His Word simply as it stands, and believe
it, and ask no questions, just feeling assured that if God has said it,
it will be so. I bear my willing testimony that I have no reason, nor even
the shadow of a reason, to doubt my Lord, and I challenge Heaven, and earth,
and hell, to bring any proof that God is untrue. From the depths of hell
I call the fiends, and from this earth I call the tried and afflicted believers,
and to Heaven I appeal, and challenge the long experience of the blood-washed
host, and there is not to be found in the three realms a single person
who can bear witness to one fact which can disprove the faithfulness of
God, or weaken His claim to be trusted by His servants. There are many
things that may or may not happen, but this I know shall happen--

All the
purposes of man have been defeated, but not the purposes of God. The promises
of man may be broken--many of them are made to be broken--but the promises
of God shall all be fulfilled. He is a promise-maker, but He never was
a promise-breaker; He is a promise-keeping God, and every one of His people
shall prove it to be so. This is my grateful, personal confidence, "The
Lord will perfect that which concerneth me"--unworthy me, lost and ruined
me. He will yet save me; and--

"I, among
the blood-wash'd throng,Shall
wave the palm, and wear the crown,And shout
loud victory."

I go to
a land which the plough of earth hath never upturned, where it is greener
than earth's best pastures, and richer than her most abundant harvests
ever saw. I go to a building of more gorgeous architecture than man hath
ever builded; it is not of mortal design; it is "a building of God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens." All I shall know and enjoy
in Heaven, will be given to me by the Lord, and I shall say, when at last
I appear before Him--

"Grace
all the work shall crownThrough
everlasting days;It lays
in Heaven the topmost stone,And well
deserves the praise."

I know
there are some who think it necessary to their system of theology to limit
the merit of the blood of Jesus: if my theological system needed such a
limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I dare not allow the
thought to find a lodging in my mind, it seems so near akin to blasphemy.
In Christ's finished work I see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no
bottom, my eye discovers no shore. There must be sufficient efficacy in
the blood of Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved not only all
in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds, had they transgressed their
Maker's law. Once admit infinity into the matter, and limit is out of the
question. Having a Divine Person for an offering, it is not consistent
to conceive of limited value; bound and measure are terms inapplicable
to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of the Divine purpose fixes the application
of the infinite offering, but does not change it into a finite work. Think
of the numbers upon whom God has bestowed His grace already. Think of the
countless hosts in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there to-day, thou wouldst
find it as easy to tell the stars, or the sands of the sea, as to count
the multitudes that are before the throne even now. They have come from
the East, and from the West, from the North, and from the South, and they
are sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob in the Kingdom
of God; and beside those in Heaven, think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed
be God, His elect on earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and
the days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be multitudes
upon multitudes brought to know the Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. The
Father's love is not for a few only, but for an exceeding great company.
"A great multitude, which no man could number," will be found in Heaven.
A man can reckon up to very high figures; set to work your Newtons, your
mightiest calculators, and they can count great numbers, but God and God
alone can tell the multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more
in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I canswer, because
Christ, in everything, is to "have the pre-eminence," and I cannot conceive
how He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions
of Satan than in Paradise. Moreover, I have never read that there is to
be in hell a great multitude, which no man could number. I rejoice to know
that the souls of all infants, as soon as they die, speed their way to
Paradise. Think what a multitude there is of them! Then there are already
in Heaven unnumbered myriads of the spirits of just men made perfect--the
redeemed of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues up till
now; and there are better times coming, when the religion of Christ shall
be universal; when-- "He shall reign from pole to pole, With illimitable
sway;" when whole kingdoms shall bow down before Him, and nations shall
be born in a day, and in the thousand years of the great millennial state
there will be enough saved to make up all the deficiencies of the thousands
of years that have gone before. Christ shall be Master everywhere, and
His praise shall be sounded in every land. Christ shall have the pre-eminence
at last; His train shall be far larger than that which shall attend the
chariot of the grim monarch of hell.

Some persons
love the doctrine of universal atonement because they say, "It is so beautiful.
It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all men; it commends
itself," they say, "to the instincts of humanity; there is something in
it full of joy and beauty." I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated
with falsehood. There is much which I might admire in the theory of universal
redemption, but I will just show what the supposition necessarily involves.
If Christ on His cross intended to save every man, then He intended to
save those who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that
He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell before He came
into this world, for doubtless there were even then myriads there who had
been cast away because of their sins. Once again, if it was Christ's intention
to save all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we have His
own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,
and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according
to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That
seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive than any of those
consequences which are said to be associated with the Calvinistic and Christian
doctrine of special and particular redemption. To think that my Saviour
died for men who were or are in hell, seems a supposition too horrible
for me to entertain. To imagine for a moment that He was the Substitute
for all the sons of men, and that God, having first punished the Substitute,
afterwards punished the sinners themselves, seems to conflict with all
my ideas of Divine justice. That Christ should offer an atonement and satisfaction
for the sins of all men, and that afterwards some of those very men should
be punished for the sins for which Christ had already atoned, appears to
me to be the most monstrous iniquity that could ever have been imputed
to Saturn, to Janus, to the goddess of the Thugs, or to the most diabolical
heathen deities. God forbid that we should ever think thus of Jehovah,
the just and wise and good!

There
is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than
I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist,
I answer--I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me,
do I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply,
I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it. But far be it from
me even to imagine that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within
her walls, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views. Most
atrocious things have been spoken about the character and spiritual condition
of John Wesley, the modern prince of Arminians. I can only say concerning
him that, while I detest many of the doctrines which he preached, yet for
the man himself I have a reverence second to no Wesleyan; and if there
were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do
not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than
George Whitefield and John Wesley. The character of John Wesley stands
beyond all imputation for self-sacrifice, zeal, holiness, and communion
with God; he lived far above the ordinary level of common Christians, and
was one "of whom the world was not worthy." I believe there are multitudes
of men who cannot see these truths, or, at least, cannot see them in the
way in which we put them, who nevertheless have received Christ as their
Saviour, and are as dear to the heart of the God of grace as the soundest
Calvinist in or out of Heaven.

I do not
think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe,
but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold any less
than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of
the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal
doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West,
but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west
and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points.
The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight
line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until
he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in
one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him
that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever
will, let him take the water of life freely." Yet I am taught, in another
part of the same inspired Word, that "it is not of him that willeth, nor
of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place,
God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help
seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions,
in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that
man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions,
I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should
declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to
be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism.
That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that
few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory
to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything
is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that
man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my
folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict
each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any
earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two
lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them
farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge,
and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence
all truth doth spring.

It is
often said that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us to
sin. I have heard it asserted most positively, that those high doctrines
which we love, and which we find in the Scriptures, are licentious ones.
I do not know who will have the hardihood to make that assertion, when
they consider that the holiest of men have been believers in them. I ask
the man who dares to say that Calvinism is a licentious religion, what
he thinks of the character of Augustine, or Calvin, or Whitefield, who
in successive ages were the great exponents of the system of grace; or
what will he say of the Puritans, whose works are full of them? Had a man
been an Arminian in those days, he would have been accounted the vilest
heretic breathing, but now we are looked upon as the heretics, and they
as the orthodox. We have gone back to the old school; we can trace our
descent from the apostles. It is that vein of free-grace, running through
the sermonizing of Baptists, which has saved us as a denomination. Were
it not for that, we should not stand where we are today. We can run a golden
line up to Jesus Christ Himself, through a holy succession of mighty fathers,
who all held these glorious truths; and we can ask concerning them, "Where
will you find holier and better men in the world?" No doctrine is so calculated
to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God. Those who
have called it "a licentious doctrine" did not know anything at all about
it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was
the most licentious doctrine under Heaven. If they knew the grace of God
in truth, they would soon see that there was no preservative from lying
like a knowledge that we are elect of God from the foundation of the world.
There is nothing like a belief in my eternal perseverance, and the immutability
of my Father's affection, which can keep me near to Him from a motive of
simple gratitude. Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth.
A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an
erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe
the one thing naturally begets the other. Of all men, those have the most
disinterested piety, the sublimest reverence, the most ardent devotion,
who believe that they are saved by grace, without works, through faith,
and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Christians should take
heed, and see that it always is so, lest by any means Christ should be
crucified afresh, and put to an open shame.